Category: Entrepreneur

This is a guest post written by Raul Harman.

Digital marketing covers a wide array of tools and methods we use to drive business growth and long-term success. But for all the tools you’re using and the talented marketers under your wings, there is no denying that customer experience is the ultimate way to gauge a brand’s performance. How so? Well, simply put, the customer is always right, and if your CX metrics are underperforming, you can bet that your entire brand will suffer as a result.

This is why improving your customers’ experience should be one of your top priorities, especially if you are to unlock the true potential of your digital marketing strategy, your sales and support, and your brand as a whole. Now that you know why it matters, let’s take a look at the best ways to enhance CX and make it the strongest marketing tool in your arsenal.

Asking for customer feedback

The first and most obvious way to improve CX over the long term is to gather as much feedback about your company as possible. This feedback should encompass all aspects of your business, including:

• The customer’s experience on your site
• Their experience on social media
• Their experience in your store or office
• The customer’s experience with your products and services
• The customer’s experience with your brand and marketing
• Their experience with every touchpoint they have with your brand

There is a lot of data to pull here, and the more feedback you ask them to give, the more valuable information will you be able to feed into your CX strategy. You can gather valuable feedback by:

• Monitoring website KPIs and metrics
• Sending out surveys via email and social media
• Offering quick pop-up questionnaires on your site
• Incentivizing feedback with a quick rating system
• Calling customers to ask for a more elaborate feedback
• Inspiring them to leave testimonials and reviews
• Asking your online audience to for honest user-generated content

Providing a seamless website experience

Your website is your most valuable asset in the online world. You can’t expect your visitors and customers to be satisfied with your brand if your website is underperforming in any way, which is one of the reasons why many online ventures ultimately fail. In other words, boosting the usability and performance of your site is paramount to long-term success nowadays.

Ideally, your website should run smoothly and load quickly, and it should be functional: meaning that you should integrate features like a search bar, filters, and a sitemap to make browsing seamless. You also need to optimize it for mobile viewing to rank higher and appeal to a wider audience.

However, this is not enough to improve CX across the board. Your website needs substance as well, meaning that you need to provide your customers with amazing storytelling, captivating messages, and impeccable branding. Remember to invest in visuals and combine various types of content to keep the customer engaged throughout their journey.

Focusing heavily on providing stellar support

One of the most important, if not the most important, elements of CX is providing stellar support to your customers. Nowadays, customers want and need to communicate with their favorite brands on a regular basis, and they want to do it on their own terms. You cannot force them to write you an email if they want to call you, nor will you be able to get them on the phone if they want to shoot you a message. 

This is why it’s important to unify your communications and boost your support strategy by integrating a cloud-based platform like VoIP. Some of the leading hosted VoIP providers offer low-cost phone calls, video and audio conferencing, messaging and mobile apps, as well as various other communication tools to help you interact with customers in real time. However, one of the most important features of VoIP is its integrated call analytics tool, which you can use to extract valuable data and use it to fuel your CX strategy.

Emphasizing customer safety on your site

Another important element of customer satisfaction which you can use to enhance their overall experience is to simply emphasize the safety and security of your website. In a world filled with scammers and hackers trying to steal sensitive data, customers need to know that their information is safe with your brand.

Be sure to focus on improving the security of your blog, your Ecommerce store, and your entire digital presence by migrating to the cloud and integrating advanced cybersecurity measures. What’s more, make sure that your customers know it, and position security badges strategically on your site to improve brand trust, loyalty, and the customer’s experience.

Ensuring brand consistency across all channels

Lastly, remember that your customers want a unified, seamless, and consistent experience across all touchpoints. Your brand’s personality and tone of voice must not be different depending on the platform they’re using, or you’d risk alienating them for good. 

Make sure to project the same brand image across the online and offline worlds, including your site, social media, other authority websites, forums, online ads and offline ads, communication and support, and beyond. This will ensure brand consistency that will further build trust in your brand.

Wrapping up

Customer experience can be the strongest marketing tool in your arsenal, but you need to know how to improve it and use it to your advantage. With these tips in mind, go ahead and build a more powerful CX strategy that will take your business forward in the years to come.

 

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Author Bio:

My name is Raul and I am editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. Please take a minute to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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This is a guest post written by Raul Harman.

Every new startup in the market needs a recognizable name for their online presence because, without a proper online presence, it’s like you don’t exist at all. This is where a domain name plays a truly vital role. 

As you may already know, a domain name is basically your online business name, as well as an online address. Therefore, choosing a kickass domain name is essential. However, choosing the right name isn’t as easy as it seems. 

The main reason is that you need to take the time to consider what’s best for your startup and choose a domain name you won’t have to change later on. 

The problem is that the majority of domain names are either already taken or reserved for someone planning to start a business, which means you’ll have to come up with something unique. 

Still, everything is possible if you put your mind into it. That said, here’s how to choose an awesome domain name for your startup business.

What makes a great domain name?

Choosing a domain name can be difficult. It’s like creating a character in an online game where every name you can think of is already taken, so you pick something at random out of sheer frustration and end up regretting your decision afterwards. 

Picking something random when it comes to domain names is a mistake that should best be avoided at all costs. To help you understand and simplify the process, here are a few factors that make a great domain name you should have in mind:

• It’s short and simple
• It’s understandable and easy to read
• It’s recognizable and memorable
• It’s unique to your business
• It’s well-written and free of any grammatical errors
• It’s catchy and witty (optional)

Don’t complicate things

If you follow the above mentioned guidelines, you’ll be able to come up with something great. However, you’ll also be undoubtedly tempted to complicate things a bit so that you can have a domain name that’s already taken. For instance, you’re aiming for the “mybusiness” domain name, but that one is already taken. 

It might seem like a good idea to spice things up, such as choosing a “123my-business” for your domain name. This is probably the biggest mistake you can make. The main reason is that by using numbers or hyphens in your domain name, you’re branding your business and website as spam. In other words, people will avoid your website as soon as they see the URL. 

Your best bet is to avoid complicating things and especially avoid using hyphenated domain names. As mentioned before, keep things short and simple so that you don’t mistakenly confuse the target audience you want to lead back to your website or any other content-filled page. 

Go for the right extension

It’s no secret that the most important aspect of your domain name is the so-called TLD (Top-Level Domain). 

Moreover, the actual name in your domain is called SLD (Second Level Domain). Therefore, choosing the right extension, such as .com, .org or .info, as well as any other relevant extension for your domain name, is of vital importance. 

It seems silly to focus on the last segment of your domain name first, but that’s how it goes if you want a truly kickass domain name. There are a variety of TLDs to choose from, with .com being the most popular and most commonly used one. 

However, going for the obvious option isn’t always the best way to approach this matter. The fact of the matter is that there are other popular TLDs that can make your entire domain name more unique. That said, unique domain names get more attention and are more memorable than the common ones. 

For example, opting for a .me TLD is a way to personalize your domain name and make it quite catchy. This is a country-code TLD that’s quite popular these days. Therefore, deciding to go for a non-dotcom extension can oftentimes be a unique opportunity to ensure recognition for your startup business.

Choosing a unique domain name

Finally, it’s time to choose the actual domain name for your startup. If you really want something unique, it’s advisable to pick a domain name that either includes a relevant keyword in it or a domain name that’s branded. 

Branded domains are a more viable option if you’re considering branding your startup at some point. If not, a keyword domain will do just fine, as long as it’s relevant to something your startup offers, such as products or services, for instance. The right domain name with the right extension will ensure proper visibility, recognition, and credibility for your startup business. 

Domain names are essential for any business, not just startups. Choosing the right name, therefore, requires time, dedication and effort. If you decide to skimp on this process, you’ll end up having a domain name that doesn’t really represent your business, as well as a domain name that consumers simply don’t find appealing enough to explore further.

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Author Bio:

My name is Raul and I am editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. Please take a minute to connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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A lot of people tend to oversimplify the idea of owning your own business in order to make it more appealing as if it weren’t already. Provided that they already work in the field in which they want to start an independent business, they assume that they’ll automatically know what to do on their own. This, nonetheless, isn’t necessarily true. You see, there are several entrepreneurial secrets that you might not have heard so far. Here are five of them.

Income and cash flow are not one and the same

The first thing we need to clarify is the fact that while your business may be doing great on paper, you might still experience some cash problems for a prolonged period of time. This is due to the fact that most of your clients may be using the credit payments method and these account receivables just aren’t coming fast enough. To avoid this from becoming a problem, you should dedicate yourself to the issue of cash flow. Incentivizing cash payments is one way to do so, whereas selling some of these invoices might be a great temporary solution.

Doing what you love is not enough

Don’t get us wrong, having a passion for something that you do is great, however, it’s not necessarily enough. Unless you pick a niche that’s profitable enough, you risk entering into a business world under unfavorable conditions. Think about it, how long are you likely to love doing something that’s losing you money? On the other hand, if you’re too passionate about something, it might become quite hard to look at the thing objectively.

Keep things in writing

You wouldn’t believe just how hard it is to keep track of all things that take place around you once you become an entrepreneur. In the early stages of your business, the workload might not be that great, which is why it might seem easy to keep all the promises that you’ve given to your clients and employees.

The problem is that this creates a habit of trying to memorize things you don’t have to. To make the matters worse, this will make you stick to this technique long after it’s no longer possible for you to keep track of everything on your own. Instead, try typing everything that goes around or even take a more traditional approach by getting a planner and/or journal.

A mentor can be indispensable

There’s only so much you can learn from guides, manuals and courses – the rest comes down to experience. Now, due to the fact that 8 out of 10 small businesses fail, it becomes more than clear that the trial and error methodology might not be the safest route for you to take. This is where a mentor can come in handy. By advising you on what to do in any given situation, you can get a more efficient way of reacting to the new set of circumstances.

Never stop learning

They say that it takes doing something for about 10,000 hours in order to master it. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the business world is incredibly volatile, which means that in just a couple of years, you might end up sitting on a ton of outdated data, skills and business practices. For this reason, you can never afford to put a halt to your learning process. Courses, seminars and various online learning resources are a great source of knowledge. Still, the bulk of it needs to come from experience.

Apart from these general tips, there are also some industry-related secrets that you may have to figure out on your own or learn from your mentor. Either way, the very knowledge of these five secrets may substantially improve your chances of making it where most others fail. As the last, unofficial, piece of advice, you need to arm yourself with patience. So many entrepreneurs stray from the right path simply because they aren’t seeing results fast enough. Perseverance is the name of the game.

Author Bio:

Diana Smith is a full time mom of two beautiful girls interested in topics related to finances and latest business technologies. In her free time she enjoys exercising and preparing healthy meals for her family.

 

 

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With the dawn of the digital age, more and more aspiring entrepreneurs are abandoning the old brick-and-mortar business models in search of online business success, and for a good number of reasons at that. Not only does leading a digital business eliminate overhead costs associated with running a company, but most importantly, it opens up a world of networking opportunities – it allows you to tap into the global talent pool and hire the best of the best in the industry.

However, managing a remote team is not an easy task, especially for a fast-growing company. There are numerous risks and common pitfalls of remote team management you should be wary of, so let’s take a look at the five effective ways to lead a digital workforce that will propel your brand forward.

The importance of honesty and transparency

The millennial workforce is not easy to please, and if there is anything modern employees won’t tolerate in their work environment, it’s dishonesty. A surefire way for your team members to leave you high and dry in the most crucial of times is to keep them in the dark, demanding that they do their job without asking too many questions.

This is a red flag for the modern employee, and they will not hesitate to leave you in search of a company where they will feel appreciated. In order to avoid this, while building a strong, co-depended team, you want to set a foundation of honesty, transparency, and freedom of communication. This will also portray a trustworthy image of your brand, which is extremely important in the digital realm.

Make regular meetings a priority

Many online entrepreneurs and business leaders fall prey to one common pitfall when leading a remote team: unstructured face-time with their employees. While regular email communication is important, you should make regular face-to-face meetings with your team members a priority if you want to create a trustworthy bond, boost productivity, and resolve any issues promptly.

Meticulous team management through scheduled meetings should be one of the pillars of your growth strategy, and nowadays it’s easy to gather your employees in a single spot using a digital office space. With numerous video call apps at your disposal that can support numerous interlocutors at a time, you should have no problem leading productive weekly meetings with your team.

Emphasize workplace diversity

In the modern business world, workplace diversity is not just an option, it’s an imperative. Not only for the creation of a trustworthy brand image that the public will respect, but also for the creation of a crack team of professionals hailing from every corner of the world.

Remember, the best talent in the industry could be hiding anywhere, and you can find it through professional disability employment services, who are providers of skill training for people with disabilities. Companies like this help these people find a job and can get you in contact with some of the most skilled workers in your niche. By employing people from a variety of backgrounds and skill sets, you will be able to build a diversified team of professionals and uphold a reputation of a modern, trustworthy brand with a winning company culture.

Build a positive company culture

Having a strong company culture with clearly-defined values the employees and global audiences can relate to is extremely important in the modern digital world. Fortunately, you can easily build yours by defining your company’s values, putting them into context and communicating them with your employees, and just having fun in the workplace. Remember to avoid micromanaging your employees and to give them adequate autonomy over their work in order to build a company people actually enjoy being a part of – in turn, this will boost cohesion in the team.

Boost productivity with the right software

Last but not least, there can be no long-term productivity in a remote team without proper team-management software in place. A digital entrepreneur understands the importance of having workflow software on deck in order to monitor their team’s performance at all times, have a single platform where everyone can upload their work and communicate, and just act as a team working in a real office space. Couple such software with a strict work schedule and deadlines and you will have no problem keeping your team members in check.

Leading a remote team is definitely not an easy task in the modern business world, especially for a fast-growing company that needs the support of all its employees. By implementing these tactics, you should have no problem boosting productivity across the board and setting the stage for long-term success in the industry.

Author Bio:

Lauren Wiseman is an entrepreneur, currently based in Melbourne and a regular contributor to bizzmarkblog.com. She assists clients in growing their personal and professional brands in a fast-changing and demanding market environment. Covering finance and investment topics, Lauren strongly believes in holistic approach to business.

Do you lead a remote team?

If so, which strategies do you use to manage them?

 

The problem with the issue of company culture lies in the fact that it’s the most important non-quantifiable factor in your company’s growth. In other words, while you know it’s necessary and that it brings growth, you have no way of knowing just how much you stand to gain from it. Moreover, a lot of people don’t even know where to start building the company culture so here are eight strategies to help you out.

1. Clean straightforward communication

The first thing you need to understand about building a company culture is the fact that it rests on clean and straightforward communication more than anything else. Regardless of the idea, you need means to pass it down the chain of command and receive feedback. Furthermore, transparency and openness of communication should be the core of your corporate values, regardless of your starting point. This practice alone avoids potential misunderstandings and makes coordination simpler and more efficient.

2. Explain the importance of company culture

Another thing you need to focus on is explaining the company culture to your staff. One of the ways to do so is by presenting them with social proof. Sure, your company needs to stand for something, yet the importance of this might elude even some of the most dedicated employees. Therefore, you need to find a way to show them how a positive company culture helps boost productivity, increases marketability and improves the unity in the workplace. It would also be quite handy to find some statistics to back up your theory. For instance, companies with a strong culture have four times as much revenue growth as those without it.

3. Storytelling

Tell a story about your journey every step of the way in order to make people truly care. What we mean by this is that you need to find a way to build a great company structure by employing various storytelling methods. Everyone likes a story about the underdog success, however, the way in which you present it may be equally as important. Try not to focus too much on your personal achievements. After all, the point of this story is not there merely to inflate your ego. Instead, talk about the people who made it all possible. Talk about your team, your customers and your partners. By making this into their story, you’ll get them personally involved in the future of your company, which brings us to the next point…

4. Personal motivation

The next issue we need to talk about is the personal motivation. What this means is that the people who are responsible for the success of the company have a personal motivation to see the company succeed. For instance, if you promise a hefty bonus for the successful completion of a project, you can have people invest some extra effort to see this through.

On the other hand, not all of your employees are fiscally-oriented. For some, the prospect of advancement is far more important. Even those who aim to leave your company at one point have something to gain from the company’s boost in status. Let’s face it, being a team leader in a renowned company is more impressive than being the head of an unknown startup. Just make sure to break things down in a way that everyone will understand and the results are bound to follow.

5. An appealing workplace

The next thing you need to understand is the fact that inanimate factors affect your company structure, as well. For instance, working in a poorly lit, underequipped, musky environment speaks volumes of your company. It’s not only an indication of your low financial status but also of your low regard for the well-being of your staff. This is why even the smallest of startups need to consider finding some real office space.

The problem with this idea lies in the fact that teams of 1-5 people seldom have a way of financially justifying the need to lease an office. Instead, they should probably look for a nearby shared office space. For instance, instead of running a home-based organization, entrepreneurs may look for a serviced office. In this way, you get the most cost-efficiency out of your headquarters situation and get to work to your full capacity.

6. High level of autonomy

The very feeling of having someone watch over their shoulder before they make a move is unsettling to say the very least. First of all, it indicates a clear lack of trust in their abilities. Second, it limits your own functionality, seeing as how it distracts you from your main tasks. Of course, we’re not claiming that you should let every single person in the company make their own independent choices. Nevertheless, everyone needs to have at least some degree of autonomy regarding the tasks they are in charge of.

7. Higher talent appeal

By improving the infrastructure of your company and learning how to market it properly, you’ll not only make it a better place to work at but also a more appealing company to work for. In other words, once you start hiring people, you’ll get letters of recommendation from more promising candidates, people with more experience and better letters of recommendation. This also needs to be one of the things you keep in mind when building a company culture.

8. Don’t forget to have fun

While a lot of people don’t see how fun and professionalism go hand in hand, there’s a statistic claiming that happy employees work 12 percent better. Sure, distracting people from their core tasks isn’t something that should be tolerated but there’s a difference between a workplace where everyone does what they like and a place with a bit more relaxed atmosphere. While most employers fear that their company could easily descend into anarchy, this line isn’t nearly as thin as they fear, which is why this isn’t something that can just happen spontaneously.

In conclusion

As you can see, the benefits of a great company culture are so numerous that they’re hard to count and by creating and enforcing the right set of corporate values, you get to enjoy all of these perks. The key thing here is not to allow yourself to get sidetracked by traditional myths and misconceptions about an effective workplace. The best thing about company culture is that it can be started while you have three employees and still have it remain relevant by the time you reach 300.

Author Bio:

Lauren Wiseman is marketing specialist, contributor to bizzmarkblog.com  and entrepreneur. She helps clients grow their personal and professional brands in fast-changing and demanding market, strongly believing in a holistic approach to business.

 

 

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First-time entrepreneurs have too much in front of them to tackle, yet, the issue of finances always comes to the forefront. After all, without enough money, your company will run into the ground long before it reaches its full potential. If you’re not careful enough with your finances, this is exactly what’s going to happen. With that in mind and without further ado, here are five important financial tips for first-time entrepreneurs to help them bridge that rough patch of the first six months to one year in the business world.

Limiting Fixed Expenses

As soon as you start, you need to make sure you can keep your business afloat, and the most efficient way to do so is to limit the fixed expenses. The broadband plan you’ve signed up for always has a fixed cost, but you would be surprised at just how precise you can make your estimation of utilities, fleet management overhead, and supplies cost. At the end of the day, frugality is the name of the game, which is why you need to do your best to keep your expenses low and urge your employees to do the same.

Managing Cash Flow

The next thing worth keeping an eye out for is the cash flow. The initial investment money gets depleted fairly soon, but the operational costs still remain. Then, you need to innovate, offer incentives to customers (other than discounts), and pay bonuses to your employees in order to keep the morale high. The thing about cash is that, during the initial stage of your startup, it’ll be in short supply. Debts, subscriptions, fees, and interest rates will eat most of it, while the bulk of your profit might remain in invoices and account receivables. Therefore, you need to be extra careful when it comes to your management of those few resources you do have available.

Exploring Fundraising Options

The way in which you acquire the money for your startup will determine the way in which your company functions from that day on. Getting a partner means split control and going through preorder; a crowdfunding system implies that you already have some customers, while taking money from a relative may put your personal relationship in peril. All things considered, many first-time entrepreneurs tend to go with start up business loans. The reason behind this is mostly the fact that they aren’t required to present a business plan or a financial record (both of which would have been problematic for someone without previous experience).

Pay Your Bills Online

According to one survey, an average company spends $12 in order to pay a bill, while when paying through an online platform this amount can be brought down to as little as $1.50 per bill. In other words, you get to save about $10.50 per bill, which on monthly and yearly level comes down to a substantial amount. The sooner you start, the more money you stand to save.

Open Source Tools

Finally, one of the best ways to save money in your office is to go for open source tools. Open Office can be equally as efficient as MS Office. Nowadays, Google offers more than a few great alternatives to this expensive standard tool, as well. Aside from open source tools, certain free trials, demo versions, and free versions can also come in quite handy. Sure, some offer limited functionality, others have an expiry date but, for the time being, they save you money. Due to the fact that your first several months are a period when you’re supposed to save the most, there’s no reason for you not to do so.

First-time entrepreneurs meet many challenges on their path to success but with proper organizational abilities, enough research, and adequate advice it’s quite possible to make it on your first try. Apart from all the above-listed, it’s smart to hire services of a seasoned accountant, seeing as how this awaits you somewhere down the line. Never stop learning and always remain persistent and you give yourself a really fair shot at success!

Author Bio:

Diana Smith is a full time mom of two beautiful girls interested in topics related to finances and latest business technologies. In her free time she enjoys exercising and preparing healthy meals for her family. Follow Diana her on Twitter and Google+.

 

 

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There are countless reasons why someone would set out on their own to conquer the business world. For some people, it’s about bringing their ideas to life. For others, the motivation is purely financial. Regardless of the reason, entrepreneurs are hardcoded to pursue success in all of its forms.

Let’s consider two ways you can maximize your wealth by leveraging your entrepreneurial skill set. Both options are viable paths to pursue for small businesses, so read on to decide which one is best for you.

Building Wealth Through Business Growth

The first approach is a long-term solution that rewards dedication and steady growth. Essentially, you will increase your personal financial standing by paying yourself an increased salary or income as the company continues to expand.

The profits of the company will decide how quickly your salary goes up. This requires both patience and a careful balance between keeping the business sustainable, and optimizing your personal wealth.

To accomplish this, you should focus on growing your business while also keeping things manageable on the administrative side.  Establishing systems, cutting unnecessary distractions, and keeping financials up to date will go a long way towards ensuring that your business is both profitable and sustainable as you grow.

Here are some current best practices to grow a business quickly:

• Build a sales funnel early on that incorporates your entire business model and digital marketing strategy. This will ensure that you can scale upward as things ramp up.
• Keep a close eye on your competition. Take a look at what’s working for them, and what they struggle with so you don’t make the same mistakes.  Use tools like LinkedIn, Alexa, ahrefs, and of course, Google, to keep an eye out.
• Keep your current customers happy. Consider a customer loyalty program. It’s far more costly to acquire new customers, so build a lasting relationship with the ones you do have.
• Consider a franchising model that will allow you to expand quickly. This can be a complex endeavor, but it pays in the long-term.
• Focus on driving traffic through marketing practices such as SEO and PPC.

Maximizing Wealth by Selling Your Company

This option allows you to quickly garner wealth by selling your company, but it’s not quite as simple as growing a business and then passing it off. This option is attractive because it can result in immediate wealth (often with a lower tax rate, too) than running the business.

To start down this path, you’ll want to understand your exit possibilities early on. In fact, you can start thinking about the end goal during your first year of business. Start by setting goals for milestones in your company. Where do you want to be in 1, 5, or even 15 years from now? Setting these goals will help you direct the company’s path forward.

Many small businesses are sold as a multiple of EBITDA, or put more simply, profit, (in the 4-6x range).  In other words, if you’re generating $1m of profit, you could expect to sell for $5m. However, high-growth companies with extremely high gross margins (often software) can sell for a revenue multiple — often, startups with recurring revenue streams can garner 5-10x revenue multiples — but of course, recognize that those types of companies will also have well-funded and national/international competition.

Think about if you plan on selling the company wholly or will you allow someone else to slowly take it over for you — that person could be a family member, a close friend, or even another business entirely.

All of this culminates in the sale of the company, which you should also prepare for. Pull in an expert and practice your negotiation techniques and pre-sale corporate planning skills. Understand common language and techniques for selling a small business and you will uncover opportunities to increase the value of the company and walk away with more as a result.

Before you enter into a transaction, make sure that your current financials are up-to-date and properly showcase the company’s worth.  The “diligence” process will be infinitely easier if you’re not digging up receipts from three years back when you’ve got a prospective buyer.

Start thinking about these things as early as possible. The time to sell may come sooner than you think, so having a plan will ensure that you are not caught off guard.

Final Thoughts

Maximizing wealth is a process that starts early in an entrepreneur’s life and extends long into the future. Whether you prefer to grow the business and reap rewards through annual income, or you plan on selling the company, preparation is key.

If you prepare early on, you can pivot your plans quickly and ultimate reach your goal, regardless of how you decided to get there. How do you plan on maximizing your wealth? What tips would you offer to new entrepreneurs? 

Author Bio:

Jaren Nichols is Chief Operating Officer at ZipBooks and ZipBooks Pros. Jaren was previously a Product Manager at Google and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

 

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Of the many mistakes entrepreneurs make, the one you can easily avoid is shying away from video advertising and believing that it’s only an option that befits huge corporations or those that are willing to part with enormous amounts of cash.  

Well, a couple of years back, this was somewhat true. In fact, video advertising mostly aired on broadcast media like television. But a lot has changed over the years.

For example, the tools required for video advertising have gotten cheaper, better, and more accessible. There are inexpensive and even free apps to assist you in your video marketing efforts. New techniques, trends, and video marketing technologies keep emerging year after year, their intention being to make video marketing as smooth and effective than ever before.

Online video platforms have also blown up and boast of billions of users thirsting for video content that will satisfy their different needs.

To an entrepreneur, this should be treated as good news because armed with your creativity, a few inexpensive tools, SEO and DIY techniques, you can create an excellent marketing video with the potential to achieve just as much as other great marketing videos, expensive and otherwise, have achieved.

Today, you will learn of low-cost video marketing ideas that not only eliminate the stereotype we mentioned earlier, but also carry the potential to turn around your video marketing strategy and bring you closer to success.

1. Tap Into Your Audience For Content/ Video Testimonials

The special thing about user-generated content is that it feels more genuine and organic compared to content created by the organization.

You can begin by giving your customers a chance to take part in your marketing campaigns. This usually works well with e-commerce store owners. You can source for and keep tabs on video testimonials on your product or service or request your customers to come up with one.

You can also invite them over for a recording in which they’ll share their experience with your product or service, just like in this video in which Sarah shares her experience with Freshbooks and how it changed her life.

If possible, offer your customers something such as a discount or a nice offer in return for a video testimonial of your service or product.

Granted, many such videos may lack quality or professionalism, but the upside to this is that this is what makes them genuine, trustable, and easily shareable, not to mention that they convey social proof.

Additionally, you can come up with fun contests and competitions. For instance, you can ask your customers to record themselves using your product, say a rowing machine, and whoever has the best video, wins something valuable. This may be one of your own products, a gift card, or anything that would incentify your customer to participate. You can always try different offers to see which one fits your customer base the best. Or better yet, survey a portion of your customer base to see what they would deem as valuable.

Such a move will motivate your customers while, at the same time, give your brand a chance to spread its name through the videos. Don’t forget that you can do all these without spending a lot of extra money.

2. Consider Animated Explainer Videos

With an animated explainer video, you can tell your audience what you do, who you are, why you are their best option, and so on in just a few seconds or minutes. Like most effective videos, they involve both auditory and visual senses, which in turn makes them more engaging.

If what you offer isn’t self-explanatory or pretty unfamiliar and you would like to show your audience how your product works, an animated explainer video is the perfect option. Whiteboard videos, for instance, can be great for educational purposes, especially when you want to break down complex concepts.

However, quality animated explainer videos don’t come cheap because, in most cases, you have to hire an agency to create one and this will require you to part with a significant amount of money.

You may not be able to shell out a huge budget, but the good thing is, there’s an alternative option. Unlike before, now we have plenty of DIY animation tools, some free while others are relatively low in price. Examples include Animaker (free version plus affordable premium options) and Powtoon (free version plus affordable premium options).

With such tools, you can still create a decent animated explainer video with the potential to deliver an excellent result.

3. Inexpensive/Free Tools And Techniques

Year after year, developers come up with clever tools designed to make video production easier and better. Of course, some are quite expensive, but still, there’s a majority that are free, if not incredibly cheap.

For instance, if you are a MAC user, instead of hiring a professional to edit your videos, you can use iMovie to carry out video editing work such as trimming videos, syncing audio, merging video clips, adding background music, and so much more. Windows users also have a similar option: the Windows Movie maker.

Not only are these tools great for those with limited budgets but they are also ideal for amateurs and those with busy schedules. Some of the free video editing apps such as Magisto and Animoto come with affordable premium options just in case you might want to experience more than what you are getting from the free versions.

It’s the same situation for techniques. Now we have interactive videos, personalized videos, virtual reality videos, 360 videos, you name it. All have demonstrated great potential to achieve remarkable results and while some, such as virtual reality videos, can cost a lot, others like personalized and interactive videos can be affordable and will perform just as good as any other great marketing video.

4. Do A Vlog

A vlog is a shortened term for video blog. And just as the name suggests, this is the act of creating and publishing video content on online platforms. It’s the alternative to a written blog post and, like blogging, vlogging ought to be done consistently in order to achieve success.

In recent years, vlogging has gained plenty of popularity due to many reasons, key amongst them being that it’s a cost-effective way to drive visibility and boost engagement with an online audience, which is exactly what you need to grow a business.

Gary Vee, a celebrated American entrepreneur, has successfully used vlogs to grow his businesses. You can watch one of his vlogs below.

Unlike other forms of video marketing, with vlogging, you will encounter just a few entry costs when starting out and what’s more, you can go ahead to re-use the content you’ve already shared on social media, email, or your website.

To produce a vlog, what you need is a vlogging camera (there’s plenty of good affordable cameras for vlogging) and just show up for your shoot. In fact, you can do all these on your own. Some post-production work may be involved, but if you have an idea about basic video editing, this won’t be a challenge.

Final Word

Looking at marketing videos that have performed well in the recent past (like Dollar Shave Club’s viral marketing video), it’s pretty clear that you don’t need to be a huge brand or to invest millions of dollars in your video production in order to make your marketing video effective.

Even with that tiny budget, you can still come up with a marketing video that can achieve just as much success as the great marketing videos of our time. And to get started, these low cost video marketing ideas have got you covered. What’s left is for you to use the knowledge you’ve gained, the creativity in you, and the resources at your disposal to create a video that will propel your business to the next level.

Also, now is the best time to upgrade your video marketing strategy, especially if you are operating under a small budget. And if you are yet to launch your strategy, don’t fail to consider these four ideas.

Author Bio:

Robyn Howard is a proud video enthusiast and also content manager at VideoRemix.io. She works with a devoted team of techies to help people create, edit, personalize, and publish production-quality video campaigns to engage their audience. Clients can use personalized video software to create videos for prospects on websites, landing pages, video-sharing sites, Facebook and more.

 

Please let Robyn and I know what you think!

Recent tech success stories out of Silicon Valley have generated the idea that anyone who can get VC investors can launch a company and become a successful entrepreneur.

The ultimate collapse of a lot of those start-up businesses has Wall Street rethinking what makes a business leader able to launch a successful startup. It isn’t merely money and a fantastic idea that builds great business, it is great leaders. Americans should reconsider what it means to become an business startup leader.

The term entrepreneur pertains to a person that has established a business…However, it’s more than this; it’s a specific set of abilities and features which are innate in some people or can be learned by passionate individuals. The push to become an entrepreneur is clear to those people in their youth which drives them to begin their own company. If you started your own business designing logos on 99designs then you know you are a natural-born entrepreneur.

Many prosperous startup businesses are established by those that possess a distinct entrepreneurial personality, which scientists dubbed the Entrepreneur Gene, and personality traits that are special in the business world.

Entrepreneurs are Created Differently

Researchers have found that entrepreneurial brains are different and they’ve termed this gap “entrepreneurial cognition.” This usually means the methods entrepreneurs use to make decisions is significantly different than full-time corporate workers. Neuroscientists have ascertained that the women and men who eventually become successful entrepreneurs possess a high need for novelty and liberty, and they’re also highly exploratory, spontaneous, optimistic, enthusiastic and responsible.

This does not indicate they don’t need years of formal schooling, business expertise, and business knowledge – they do.  It’s their internal entrepreneur which compels them to obtain this technical training and skill to establish their company. You know you are an entrepreneur if you spend your weekends building an online business.

However, with the right motivation and open mindset, determined individuals without these natural traits can be effectively taught entrepreneurship. Professor Julian Lange, of Babson College, states, “Much of the recent research shows that entrepreneurship can be taught. Maybe, simply put, you can’t teach someone to be passionate about entrepreneurship. On the other hand, I’ve been teaching for 20 years, and in my experience people can definitely discover their passion for entrepreneurship in the classroom. And in terms of general skills, if they start out with interests or endowments that make them more likely to be entrepreneurs or less likely, you can enhance their ability to be entrepreneurs through teaching.”

Attributes of Successful Entrepreneurs

Great Salesman

All business owners will need to understand how to sell. Whether they are promoting their business plans to shareholders for company loans, or if they’re promoting their company mission to their workers, their sales abilities are essential to their win.

Drive for Success

Your enthusiasm for achievement and success may power your entrepreneurial ventures. This is a different kind of mindset compared to that of a “for hire employee”. Several of the most prosperous entrepreneurs came from modest beginnings that drove their desire for achievement. This internal drive will inspire them and keep their spirits up to perform the grueling schedule required to create your own business triumph.

Independent Mind

As an industrialist, you steer your ship as Captain. You have to rely on your own wits and no one else, so you want to consider yourself and plan to make tough choices. Most entrepreneurs have an extraordinarily powerful instinct and self confidence. They are in charge of their own lives, their businesses, and their workers, and they care deeply. They set goals and write them down and refer to them often.

Know Buyers Motives

To be successful as a company owner, you have to genuinely understand your clients and why they purchase your products. You need to deeply understand their lifestyles and motives. This implies understanding the real reason they are buying, not just the one they prefer to talk about. Should you genuinely comprehend their psychology, their lives, their own needs, you will probably know what they will buy before they reach for their wallets.

Committed to the Long Range View

Small business executives know it takes time build a company and they’re able to diligently labor to reach their objectives. This can be hard for excited, fast moving entrepreneurs to do in real life. But it’s a characteristic they need to learn if they intend to be successful.

Highly Motivated

Entrepreneurs like to get the job done. In reality, they’re jazzed about the actions and goals they’ve set for their new organization. They are significantly separate from those folks whose job life is merely a way to make money. Please don’t be duped into believing the lifestyle of an entrepreneur, though the work hours are flexible, it’s not a modest nor straightforward job commitment. Most of them work over 40 hours weekly during their startup periods. That is the reason it’s vital that they’re highly engaged to voluntarily continue this demanding pace.

Love to Break Rules

Most entrepreneurs hate rules. They’re always saying, Why don’t we try this instead? Or can’t we do it like this? While corporate kinds are pleased to follow the company, the entrepreneur hates the limitation and apparently stupid set of rules. They can see their commercial vision a much better, and frequently more rewarding method to get the very same objectives. Often the exasperation with business rules encourages people to establish their companies rather than accept the corporate dogma.

Positive Mindset

The top industry Entrepreneur media has ascertained that business starters are very optimistic. This is particularly significant since scientists have found that negative feelings can reduce the minds capability to think creatively and broadly. These people see trials as challenges as well as the resolution of the puzzle as exciting and entertaining.

Take calculated risks

In contrast to some people’s opinion, entrepreneurs don’t enjoy high risks. Individuals who have a strong demand for safety see them as such, however, the belief is false. Entrepreneurs compute their risks by performing analysis, research and consulting with other consultants. They weigh the advantages and disadvantages of dangers and always have another strategy to safeguard their organization and assets.

Lifelong Learners

The main task for the majority of business people is learning new abilities. Whether it’s the way to handle social websites, or decrease expenses, or to enter a new trade, entrepreneurs want to always be growing and learning to be successful.

The best entrepreneurs are lifelong students. They learn officially in books, classes, seminars and by studying business publications and informally by studying entrepreneur sites, like this one, and from business experience of problems and solutions.

Certainly, many individuals with a basic education can manage a company reasonably well. But the majority of them don’t have the spirit of an entrepreneur that is going to make a straightforward business into a prosperous firm. To be the leader of a growing company, you need to possess these attributes or learn these and the skills necessary to succeed.

About the Author:

Author of this post, Marsha Kelly, sold her first business for more than a million dollars. She’s shared hard-won experiences as a successful serial entrepreneur on her Best4Businesses small business blog. Marsha also regularly posts business tips, ideas, insights and suggestions as well as product reviews for business readers. As a serial entrepreneur who has done “time” in corporate America, Marsha has learned what products and services really work well in business today. You can learn from her experiences from shopping the internet for tools, supplies, and information to build your businesses and improve lives financially.

Can you make money blogging?

Well if you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time now, you will notice that every once in a while I will update my readers with the exact strategies I use to make money from my blog.

The method I will be sharing with you today is one of the most common and in my opinion easiest ways to get started with making money from your blog and online in general.

Affiliate Marketing 

Of course I recommend monetizing your blog in various other ways as well, but affiliate marketing should absolutely be one of your approaches if you already have a blog or are looking to start a blog.

The reason being is that you do not have to go through the hassle of creating your own product (however, at some point you should consider doing this), which can be time consuming, confusing and overwhelming.

The wonderful thing about affiliate marketing is that all you really need to do is sign up with an affiliate company (generally free) like ClickBank and create your affiliate link(s) to sell products where you’d earn a certain percentage of each commission you make.

You can literally start sending traffic to your affiliate link as soon as it’s ready.

However, I wanted to give you a specific real-life example of how I did this a few days ago to make a recurring commission as an Aweber affiliate.

Hopefully this will motivate some of you to go out there and try this for yourself.

Don’t be afraid to experiment!

Affiliate Commission Method Using Blogging (Real Example)

Okay so if you notice that to the upper right hand side of my blog (depending on the time you’re reading this), there is a squeeze page where people can enter their email address to gain access to my free private training videos (see screenshot). 

Upon entering their email address, they are taken to a thank you page which prompts them to check their email and follow the link embedded in there to access the training videos.

Once they click the link they are taken to my free training (highly recommended) which then takes them through a series of videos.

On video #6 I go over setting up an Aweber email autoresponder account and how important it is to any online business whether you’re blogging or not.

Below the video I have a link (my affiliate link) that takes people over to the Aweber website to sign up for a free trial (see screenshot below).

Now that my blog is getting more traffic and more people are signing up to my email list, I am noticing more clicks to my links and also more commissions 🙂

And in this specific case, someone went all the way through my Aweber training video and signed up for an account using my affiliate link.

The result…a 30% recurring commission, which isn’t much to start if someone signs up for a $19.99 account. However, the more sales that come in, the higher my monthly Aweber income becomes…it’s really just a numbers game.

If I sign up 100 people at that level, i’ll be earning $570 per month (not too shabby) and extremely possible to accomplish.

In fact, my goal is to sign up 1,000 people in the next 12-24 months, which would generate me $5,700 in monthly Aweber affiliate income.

I also didn’t mention that the bigger people’s email lists get within Aweber, the higher their monthly fee is, which means the bigger commission I would earn.

So this could ultimately be much much higher.

You see the potential that blogging has when you crunch some numbers?

And that’s just one source of income.

Imagine when you combine all of the different marketing strategies to utilize on your blog.-

A big motivation of mine is to write articles like this one here that will 1.) Open up your mind to see what is possible from a simple online blog and 2.) Be completely transparent and provide you with the exact strategies I use to earn money from my blog.

I will do everything I can to get as many people as possible start their first blog, write their first blog post, make their first commissions online and create more freedom in life.

Please try something like the above affiliate marketing strategy and let me know how it goes.

Can you make money blogging?

Oh Yes! and in many different ways!

Have you started your blog yet?